rjbs in Rio, part ⅲ
I’d had four days in Rio so far (and one in Miami, better left unmentioned). I had covered lots of ground for things I wanted to see, and also lots of things I didn’t know I should see. I had eaten so, so much cassava. I had lots of things left unseen, lots of food left uneaten, and just about two days left to fill. I think I made good use of my time, but I definitely left things to do… next time?
Monday
Monday, I was on my own again for most of the day. This is not a complaint. Breno and Barbara were incredibly generous with their time! Also, even though I usually enjoy touring around with people, it can be good to wander alone, with no worry about whether you’re bring a frightful bore to your companion. I had a handful of things on my potential agenda for the day, but I only ended up visiting two of them: Parque Lage and the Botanical Garden.
Many, many times, I had to remind myself that Parque Lage is not Portguese for “Lake Park”. It’s named after Henrique Lage. I don’t know much about him, but he seems to have been a very wealth industrialist in the early 20th century, so I’m okay not knowing more, I think. Now, the land around his mansion is a large public park with lots of tree cover and plenty of interesting features. When I was there, I don’t think the building was open for visiting — or at least I couldn’t find an open entrance. Instead, I walked around the grounds, looked at ponds, hiked through overgrown paths, and took a lot of photos.
I was there for a good two hours, just walking and looking around. It’s a little odd that I don’t have more to say, but I think it’s all in the photos. Once in a while I sat down and read a chapter or two of a book. I took a photo for an older couple walking together. At one point, I accidentally walked the wrong way, left the path, wandered through the woods for a while, and found a surprise view of the city through the trees:
What else is there to say? If I lived nearby, I’d go there often to sit and read and make take a little lunch with me.
Afterward, I had meant to walk a little south to the lagoon and walk south along it to the city’s botanical garden. I forgot, though, and just walked straight down R. Jardim Botânico, which was sort of a boring walk. It wasn’t bad, and I did some people watching, but mostly it was uninteresting. Eventually, though, I came to the garden, which was not uninteresting. I spent four hours walking through the gardens, only partly because I had such a hard time navigating them.
If I ran the botanical garden, I’d be pushing Apple and Google to add a bunch more detail to their maps, because the paper map they handed out did not cut it. I had a hard time finding almost everything, but in the end it all worked out. I’ll try to summarize some of the best things I saw:
There was a “biblical garden”, full of plants mentioned in the Bible. The plaque for each one provided a chapter and verse for where to find them.
There was a primitive hut among a bunch of trees, and all I could think of was the botanical gardens in The Shadow of the Torturer, where the narrator encountered a similar (also seemingly South American) hut.
There was an orchid house with many kinds of orchid in bloom.
There was a garden of only medicinal plants, including notes on what cultures used them, and for what purposes.
There was a big section of cacti, with a surprising amount of diversity.
There were the obligatory Japanese garden and rose garden.
Also, there were monkeys.
Probably there are people who know how to write compelling, detailed, informative notes on a visit to a place like this. I’m not one of them, though. I’ll say this: I enjoyed the place enough that I spent four hours there and might have stayed longer if I didn’t have anywhere to be. Oh, and if the food was better. I had a pretty mediocre salad there, which was absolutely my own fault. I should’ve eaten something on the walk.
After the garden, I headed back to my apartment, cooled off a little, and did a quick bout of shopping. My plan was to meet Breno nearby for dinner and drinks. We went to Boteco Belmonte and hung out for a good while, trying small plates and having a few drinks. The food was good, and the company was better. Despite my small lunch and all my walking, I wasn’t terribly hungry, or I would’ve kept exploring the menu. I had my last caipirinha of the trip, but I also decided to try their Moscow Mule. It was a strange one, with the ginger added as a sort of creamy foam on top. I’m not sure I’d order it often, but it was fun as a weird surprise.
I had meant to see some other things on Monday, but I was pretty happy with the hours spent just looking at the outdoors. In retrospect, I just wish I’d gotten one more caipirinha, to go. Or maybe on the way back to my apartment.
Tuesday
Tuesday was my last day! My flight out of Rio was at 23:00, and I had to leave my apartment around eleven. Barbara and Breno graciously invited me to come by, leave my bags, and spend the day. I spent the morning packing, running a few more errands, and finishing off most of my groceries.
On my way to their place, my phone ran out of data. I’d bought an eSIM with Airalo, which was mostly just fine. (Actually, the service I got in Brazil was not as good as what I’d gotten elsewhere, but it was totally adequate.) I’d even topped it off the previous day, but I think that all my roaming in the parks had me using more data than I thought. As my Uber got me closer to their place, I realized that the map wasn’t updating, and Discord was offline. I knew their address, and I thought I remembered how to contact them, but once I was out of the car, I was stumped. Eventually, I received an SMS from Breno, and I went back to his place and got in. I had misremembered how to ring him from the front gate!
Inside, I bought more data. More importantly, I got a tour of their place, had some chit chat, and then it was time for lunch. Lunch was homemade vegan moqeueca, with plantains replacing the fish. It was delicious. I’m pretty sure that my grandmother sometimes made a similar fish stew, but I haven’t yet confirmed this with my siblings. Anyway, it was great, and was followed by a dessert of passionfruit and condensed milk. Yum!
After lunch, Breno and I dropped his daughter at school and stopped into Casa Roberto Marinho, a large house that’s been converted into a gallery space. It was good, and was the nth place I’ve seen in the past few years featuring art depicting Laocoön. Weird? I don’t know.
From there, the plan was to see the one absolute must-see thing in Rio: the giant Christ the Redeemer statue. The statue is 98’ tall, atop a 26’ pedestal, atop a 2,300’ mountain. You can see it from all sorts of places in the city. I saw it from Sugarloaf. I saw it from the beach. I saw it from the highway while the police searched my bags. It was everywhere! Also, it was going to have an incredible view of the city.
The problem is… the weather was absolutely miserable. Every day until Tuesday had been sunny and clear, but Tuesday it was cloudy, windy, and raining. We hoped it would clear up before we went up, but it didn’t. I wasn’t too fussed, really. From up close, I knew I’d see the whole statue. Still, it was not the ideal weather for it. Breno was a sport and drove us up the mountain, where we caught a train to the top.
Here’s a view of the weather taken near where we caught the train:
An aside: I had called this train a “funicular” when talking to friends, but further research tells me that it isn’t one. It is a “rack railway”, where the train is driven by a cog along a toothed rail. This allows for much steeper gradients than a normal rail line. It was pretty cool, and from inside the train, you could definitely see and feel the slope at which the train was traveling. This particular railway is the Corcovado Rack Railway, and I will definitely be reading more about it later.
Once we got to the top, the situation was both better and worse than I’d imagined. In some directions, we could see quite a ways, and I could recognize places I’d been or had heard of. In others, there was just a dense fog. It was pretty obvious that on a good day, you’d be able to see forever, and that the view of the city would be absolutely gorgeous. I wasn’t even disappointed, though. The view was still great, and the statue was really impressive. I was also delighted to find out the pedestal on which the Christ stands house a tiny, tiny church. We stepped inside briefly to get out of the wind, but we didn’t stay long, and I didn’t get a photo. It seemed a little uncouth to do so.
The weather up there wasn’t great. It was probably 55 or 60ºF, rainy, and windy. Breno was clearly miserable, and also seemed sort of baffled that I wasn’t. What can I say? Back here in Philly, we get way down below freezing, so 55ºF and windy is merely annoying. If the view had been better, I might’ve stuck around while he got out of the rain and off to pick up his kid. As it was, I saw everything there was to see pretty quickly, and we both got out of there and onto the train.
Back at their place, we had good while to sit around, talk, and have dinner. “We’ll order pizza,” they said, “but it’s going to be terrible compared to anything in the states.” I didn’t lie and say it wouldn’t be. I’ve had pizza outside the states, I know how it goes. (It was actually tasty, it just wasn’t good pizza.) After that, it was time to finally leave Rio. I got an Uber, got to the airport, and eventually flew home with no difficulty. I had plenty of things left in Rio that I could’ve stayed to do, but as always, it was really good to get home to my people.
I had meant to bring something for Barbara and Breno. I didn’t know they’d be such exemplary hosts, but either way it would’ve been gracious. I at least remembered to bring something for their daughter: Gritty. What better thing to bring as an ambassador from Philadelphia? Fortunately, he was well received, and I felt some civic pride at Gritty’s continued ability to make life a little better.
Anyway, if I go again, I’ll remember to bring a bottle of Malört or something!
As for whether I’ll go again… it’s hard to know. I’m surprised I went at all, honestly. There isn’t much natural pressure to visit South America. Work doesn’t send me there, conferences haven’t tried to entice me. It’s expensive to get to, even if it’s cheap to spend time there. Now that I’ve been, I could imagine spending more time there and enjoying it. On the other hand, there is a lot of the planet left that I haven’t even seen once. I think I’ll have to play it by ear.
In the meantime, I’ll be looking for the best caipirinha in Philadelphia. Wish me luck.